DreamsComeTrue2

From the Rapid City Journal

Horse rescuer receives gift of feed
By Steve Miller, West River Editor

A woman who rescues injured horses and uses horses to help troubled youths is
running out of hay but not hope.

Jen, who runs Promise Ranch northwest of a town outside of the BadLands,
recently received a donation of feed prompted by a 7-year-old Texas girl she
has never met.

Jen has only one large square bale left to feed her 13 horses. But Purina
recently donated two tons of horse feed to her through Rapid Feed & Seed.

"It was a godsend," She said.

She figures the donated Purina feed, along with her remaining hay, should
keep her horses going for another couple of months.

The Texas connection came through Jesse, a girl who has spina bifida and had
received physical therapy with horses. But Jesse is big for her age and couldn't
find a suitable saddle. Hunting horse sites on the Internet, the girl found Hilts'
Web site and sent her an e-mail asking for help.

Jen called the girl's mother and tried to help find Jesse a saddle. She told the
mother about her difficulties in getting hay for her horses.

"The next thing I know, I get an e-mail from a Purina executive informing me
of the donation," Jen said.

However, Jesse, still hasn't found a saddle that fits her.

Jen takes in injured horses to save them from slaughter. She is able to find
homes for some.

Mares too injured to be ridden serve as brood mares. She breeds them with her
two paint stallions and sells the colts to support the horse refuge program as
well as her efforts to provide emotional therapy for kids.

"The foal sales usually pay for the feed for the rest of the horses that are part
of the program," Jen said.

But that hasn't worked this year. With the shortage of hay due to the drought,
few people in this region are buying horses.

Jen said people who had planned to purchase two colts backed out because
they couldn't find hay.

Hay is expensive for Jen, too. Last year, hay was $30 to $40 a ton. This year,
the cheapest she has found is $75 to $80 a ton, and some has run as high as
$100 a ton.

She has avoided selling horses at sales because even good saddle horses can
bring more money by the pound for slaughter than as riding animals, Jen said.

She says she will take donations of hay. But she'd rather sell the colts. "Then, I
can pay for the hay."

She also uses horses to do emotional therapy for at-risk youths. She has helped
four or five kids in the past year.

When she lived in California, she worked daily with three or four classes of 15
youths each. She moved to Winner in 1996 and to the Philip area a couple of
years later.

Jen doesn't charge for the therapy or her horse rescue operation.